Page 121 of Omega's Flight

And then it hit me—Quin and Mac were here for exactly that reason. Maybe Laine too, but he'd be no match for a full-grown alpha in a rage, so probably not.

"It's okay," Bax whispered.

A scuff of feet behind us announced Holland coming to stand in the doorway. "Welcome, Roland. And Degan." He glanced past us to Mac. "Thank you, Mac."

I noticed he didn't tell Mac he could leave.

"Good afternoon, Holland," Roland replied. Degan nodded awkwardly, all his attention fixed on me.

"This will be Degan's house while he's here. He's close to everything he'll need and not far from Raleigh's." Holland transferred his gaze to Degan. "You are expected to obey the rules of Mercy Hills while you're here, like any good guest. Do you understand me, Degan?"

"Yeah," Degan growled and I knew immediately that he wasn't taking Holland seriously.

Holland knew it too. "Do not try my good humor, Degan," he said in a low voice. "Omega here is not the same as omega in Jackson-Jellystone." His eyes went to Roland's and the two of them stared at each other until Roland nodded reluctantly and snapped at Degan, "Don't piss off the Alpha and his Mate. This is your Alpha speaking, do you hear?"

This time, Degan's "Yeah" sounded sincere, if grudging. I watched Holland's nostrils flair, but he didn't say anything, simply turned and walked toward the house. "Come in and get settled. We'll show you where everything is."

Roland started up the steps, Degan behind him. When my mate reached the top, though, he stopped to stare directly at me. "No even a hello for your mate?"

"Hello," I said automatically, then kicked myself for it. It only confirmed to him that I still thought of him as my mate. Well, I guess he was, but only legally. The alpha I loved was probably frantically pacing back and forth in his office getting nothing done right now.

Degan sniffed and looked down his nose at Laine. "Sleeping with humans now, are you?"

A wave of rage swept over me, but that horrible practice with Cas had steeled me against Degan’s insults. You asshole. I wanted to hit him.

But Laine was one step ahead of me.

He stuck out his hand, oh so very human-like when I knew that he understood very well what an appropriate greeting was to a shifter. "Hi, I'm Laine," he said in his most cultured, smooth-talking lawyer's voice. "You must be Degan. So glad to put a face to the name."

Degan stared at the hand in bemusement, then looked up at me. "And you think you're fit to raise my pups?"

Laine laughed, all bright amusement on the surface, with a surprising taste of alpha underneath. "Oh, I'm not his lover. I'm his lawyer." He grinned, and all Pip's shark and lawyer jokes suddenly made complete sense to me.

Degan threw me a bewildered look, then disappeared into the house with more haste than was really dignified.

I stifled a giggle. This might not be so bad after all.

And when I heard Quin's voice rolling out through the door as he greeted our guests, I let my laughter free.

C H A P T E R 8 6

T hat evening, after we'd put the pups to bed, I'd planned a little...reassurance for Cas. I knew that in his alpha soul, he'd prefer to trounce Degan and run off with me and the pups tossed over his shoulder like some ancient Viking. The thought amused me and I wondered how far I could push Cas's imagination and how many hints it might take to see if he'd take me up on the fun.

But my plans for the evening were interrupted by an unexpected knock on the door. Cas and I exchanged puzzled looks and he shook his head, no, he didn't know who it was. I was closest, so I went to answer it.

Degan was waiting on my porch, a canvas bag with long handles in on hand. "I brought some stuff for the pups."

"Thank you," I said coolly. "You shouldn't be here. You can have the pups tomorrow, if you and your Alpha haven’t changed your minds.” One could always hope, as Cas would say.

"I wanted to talk to you about that," he said, in the smallest voice I'd ever heard from him. "Can I come in? Or can we go for a walk?"

"Raleigh?" Cas said, coming up behind me. I heard his sudden intake of breath and reached behind me to reassure him.

"I don't think," I said slowly, to give my brain a chance to catch up to circumstances. "That I should really be talking to you without my lawyer present."

"Yeah, that was a low blow. Shoulda guessed, though—" He cut himself off, whether sensing something from me, or from Cas, I couldn't tell. "What I mean is, they're my pups too, and by pack law they belong home."

"I know," I said. "But Mercy Hills lives in the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth."